Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova have qualified for the WTA Championships draw. The other teams are Kveta Peschke/Katarina Srebotnik, Liezel Huber/Lisa Raymond and Gisela Dulko/Flavia Pennetta.
The Championships begin October 25 in Istanbul, with singles competitors playing round-robin, and doubles teams playing in a regular knock-out format. There is one player yet to be named in the singles draw. Agnieszka Radwanska is the most likely woman to qualify. To get to Istanbul, Marion Bartoli has to win the Japan Open (something she did last week) and the Kremlin Cup, and Radwanska would have to lose in her first round of Moscow play.
Whoever does not qualify will be one of the two alternates; the other alternate is Andrea Petkovic.
Last year, Kim Clijsters won the WTA Championships. Clijsters defeated Caroline Wozniacki in the final. Gisela Dulko and Flavia Pennetta won the doubles competition when they beat Peschke and Srebotnik in the final. Clijsters is off the tour right now because of injury. Dulko and Pennetta are both dealing with injuries, but plan to be in Istanbul.
Last year, the only player to win every match in her round-robin group was Vera Zvonareva, but she lost to Wozniacki in the semifinals. Wozniacki's one round-robin loss was to Samantha Stosur.
Just an interesting note about the 2010 Championships field compared to that of 2011: while only four of last year's final eight singles players (Wozniacki, Azarenka, Zvonareva & Stosur) are back, seven of the eight doubles participants return (three teams fully intact, with only Huber replacing Stubbs as Raymond's partner).
ReplyDeleteAnd of those seven, only four also play singles, and two of that group are injured.
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